First, please let me thank Chris and Jerome over at
MyDD for having me here the last few months. They are changing their format to more election, less news, in anticipation of the mid-term elections, and no longer will be carrying The Daily Pulse as a front page item. I will be moving it to
My Left Wing, Maryscott O'Connor's new liberal blog. Thanks to her for the space. The Daily Pulse will now appear (mostly, I miss sometimes) at My Left Wing, with cross-posting on Tuesdays to Daily Kos. For the first week or so I will also post daily to Daily Kos and MyDD, to let people know where to find it.
Regular readers of The Daily Pulse know the editorial cycle runs a day or two behind the news cycle. Right now, Rove is still the story. Stay tuned to see if the Supreme Court nomination knocks Rove off the opinion page, or just the front page.
And with no further ado, today's Daily Pulse.
North County (Escondido, California) Times
Jim Wright was a United States Congressman for thirty-four years. He was in the House during Nixon's years. When he starts comparing this Administration's actions in the Rove matter to Nixon, it is worth paying attention. It was not the individual actions, even the break-in, that mattered. What mattered was the collection of "petty things" that, together, violated the principle that ALL Americans, not just one party, should be able to trust its government not to attack them or embarrass them for their point of view.
Leak of CIA agent's name shows a small-minded motive
As in the sordid revelations that brought down the Nixon administration in 1973, one of the saddest aspects of the secret White House calls that outed special agent Valerie Plame Wilson is the sheer pettiness of the scheme.
Now that top white House political adviser Karl Rove himself has been identified as one who spoke to Time magazine, identifying Joseph Wilson's wife as a secret CIA agent, the stupid venture takes on a new dimension of apparent officialdom. ...
All this is painfully reminiscent of the Nixon days. The Enemies List. The tawdry break-ins at the Democratic headquarters, and at a private psychiatrist's office to scoop up personal files of a man who opposed the Vietnam War. The use of federal agencies ---- the FBI and the IRS ---- to hound and harass private citizens who disagreed with the administration. ...
Still, President Bush would do himself and the country a favor if he'd insist that everyone in the White House read the transcript of the 1973 House Judiciary Committee debate on the Nixon administration's "dirty tricks."
It is a recitation of petty things that, taken together, dealt with grand principle. The principle is that the powers of government are a sacred trust, never to be employed to punish or embarrass one's domestic political opponents.
The very pettiness of the deed itself is, and should be, an embarrassment to us all.
Jim Wright is a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Fort Worth Star-Temecula
Letters to the Editor
Hendersonville (North Carolina) Daily Times
It looks like all but the most die-hard sheep noticed that Bush dropped the bar for Rove, going from "involved" to "convicted." It also looks like Bush's campaign strategy in 2000, to run against Clinton's morality, rather than Gore's potential Presidency, is coming back to bite him. For some reason something I heard once about glass houses and stones comes to mind.
Pardon, but your slip is showing
It depends on what the meaning of "involved" is.
President Bush was uncharacteristically evasive Monday when he backpedaled on his earlier promise to sack anyone involved in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. ...
Thirteen months ago, Bush left no doubt that he would fire anyone found to have leaked the identify of Ms. Wilson, the wife of diplomat Joe Wilson, author of the 2003 report that challenged the administration's assertion that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from Africa.
Now it has come out that Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, and Libby Lewis, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, both identified Joe Wilson's wife as a CIA agent. If that does not constitute "involvement" in the leak, it is hard to imagine what would satisfy the meaning of involved.
But Bush on Monday raised the bar for a dismissal.
"If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," he said. ...
Even if no law was broken, Bush will have trouble explaining his turnabout. Coming from him, rhetorical acrobatics are unbecoming and disappointing. When Clinton did this sort of thing, they called him slick.
Editorial Page Editor
The Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts)
This paper, too, noticed both the moveable bar and the "Clintonian" defense. Wouldn't it be ironic if what brought Bush down was not his performance as the worst President in modern history, but of acting, ONLY in the one area where he showed weakness, like his far superior predecessor?
Bush rewrites the rules with spotlight on Rove
If Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser and deputy chief of staff, is proven to have committed a crime, then he will no longer work in the White House.
And if he isn't found guilty of a crime? Then the man Bush sometimes calls "boy genius" gets to stick by the president's side. ...
Bush had previously said he'd give the boot to anyone who was found to have been leaking information about the agent. But now that Rove can no longer reasonably be said to pass that test, Bush has simply changed the rules. ...
...Bush's statement on Monday was an overt attempt to supply a shield to the president's close friend and adviser. As long as Rove is not found guilty of anything, he will not be fired.
That may make Rove and Bush feel better, but the American people have good cause to be suspicious. This is not the White House that Bush promised. It is, in myriad ways, much like the one he disparaged by implication. As administration officials and their allies split hairs and parse language and resort to obscure legalisms, one can't help but recall their disdain when those methods were employed by the previous administration.
Rove may well stick around for a time, but his sullied image won't lighten the White House.
Letters to the Editor
The Republican (Springfield, Mass.)
Okay folks, this just plain scares the shit out of me. Not only is the federal government improperly spying on perfectly legal and patriotic (if you still consider the Constitution one of the crucial measures of America) activity, but it is doing it with limited resources while letting container ships, rail cars, chemical plants, and more go uninspected. The question is not only `who is watching the watchers.' It is also, `who the hell is watching the people that SHOULD be watched while the watchers watch me?'
FBI up to old tricks in search for terrorists
During the 1960s and 1970s, when J. Edgar Hoover was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, federal agents routinely monitored the activities of political protest groups and critics of the government.
The abuses eventually led to tight restrictions on the nation's top law enforcement agency and its investigations of political activities.
After Sept. 11, 2001, many of those restrictions were relaxed so that the FBI could aggressively investigate terrorist activity, in the hope that it would prevent another attack. ...
In the months after 9/11, FBI agents were told to attend events sponsored by law-abiding religious organizations and political groups in order to spy on the activities there.
In the weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Boston, the FBI instructed agents to interrogate known anti-war activists and other political protesters. When asked if that represented a violation of their First Amendment rights, an agent told The New York Times, "No one was dragged from their homes and put under bright lights."
And now, most recently, it has been learned that the FBI has 1,173 pages of records on the American Civil Liberties Union and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace, an environmental group that has been a strong critic of the Bush administration. ...
The Justice Department says it will take up to a year to review the material the ACLU is seeking, and that it does not consider the request a matter of urgent public interest. It is fair to say - at least based on this one example - the Justice Department doesn't believe that the nation's greatest strength is in its respect for individual freedoms.
Letters to the Editor
Claremore (Oklahoma) Daily Progress
The word is "demagogue," not "demigod," though perhaps it is more accurate than you know. That said, when our choices are between somebody who would make non-Christians like myself into second class citizens, or make the whole country a second-world nation, I find myself looking for a third choice. What do you know about emigration to New Zealand, and where should I go to get tested for sheep allergies?
A wretched race
Congressman Ernest Istook of Warr Acres and State Rep. Thad Balkman of Norman are in a dead heat race to become Oklahoma's leading demigod. ...
Istook's two proposed constitutional amendments have provided the former radio voice a new media to twist the fundamentals of society. While the current budget deficit and soaring national debts are despicable, Istook as a member of the U. S. House appropriations committee could more simply fight outrageous spending. Instead, he feeds at the pork barrel; takes huge pay raises, and preaches what he doesn't practice.
As for church, state and Istook, the founding fathers did a good job of recognizing history and practicing the credo of rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God what is God's. America's churches have their hands full in inspiring high morality and holiness but secular laws are poor weapons in the fight.
Balkman, without regard to the crumbling roads, sagging bridges and shattered highways of Oklahoma is waging the fight against increasing gasoline taxes from 17 to 20 cents (and diesel from 14 to 20). Certainly, hard pressed SUV drivers will be hard pressed to vote "yes" on the special ballot. Somehow, they seem to think, that something besides ample funds will fix the chugholes and dangerous highways. They look to the likes of Balkman for reasonable answers, leadership and fiscal response. Instead, they heard his harsh attack against highway contractors who are donating money to educate the public about building needs. ...
As for Istook, thankfully he wasn't around in the 19th Century when men of integrity, courage and wisdom were writing the Constitution. And he shouldn't be in power to gum up the works in the 21st Century.
Contac the Paper
Cartoons
Today's cartoons are about the media. Wonderful, aren't they?
The Daily Tribune News (Cartersville, Georgia)
This is interesting. If you read the edited portion, you will nod your head in agreement. If you follow the link, you will have an entirely different impression. Yet I did not edit to change the content, for the ultimate message remains, that we should not surrender liberty for safety. The difference is what this guy thinks is dangerous. He is far more afraid of gun control and bicycle helmets than the FBI or the Patriot Act.
Safety important, but liberty transcends all
...
Benjamin Franklin wrote in "Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759," "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Archibald Stewart, 1791, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
This war we're fighting need not, and should not, entail the loss of any of our freedoms, else the war is lost before it's begun. If we lose liberty, the Islamists have won. that's what they abhor about us, our freedom. That's what they want to take away. Some Americans are offering exactly that, gratis, in the name of safety.
Our safety may be important, but our liberty transcends all else.
Respectfully,
Jack Brownlow
Viewpoint
Atchinson (Kansas) Daily Globe
Ever since I started doing The Daily Pulse, evolution letters and columns have been a mainstay, popping up with enormous regularity. They usually run along the lines of this one, without some of the insanity. They all confuse creation of life with changes in life forms, trying to rebut evolution with the former, while it really only attempts to explain the latter. Then they talk about "macro-evolution" and having never actually observed it themselves, without mentioning that, as a rule, they do not tend to be 4 or 5 millions years old. Finally, they reach the conclusion that makes every attempt at persuasion and reason obvious farce, that the Bible is The Truth, and nothing more need be said. This particular writer hits all the big points, then adds to the hilarity by invoking Hitler (and wasn't that actually a Goebbels quote?), blaming Marx, Stalin, and Hitler for supporting evolution as basic to "their socialist cause" (Hitler was a socialist?! Somehow I missed that part in history class). And of course, those terrific ominous words connoting conspiracy of the highest form, "new world order." If the craziness and paranoia doesn't entertain you, the ignorance will. Did you know there was really no Neanderthal man? It was really just a misunderstanding, and the one skeleton (just one?) was really an old man with arthritis. I'm telling you, their reality has lapped our satire, and that is perhaps the scariest thing of all.
Evolution theory supports a series of hoaxes and frauds
One of the amazing things to me in studying the creation-evolution controversy is the motivation of the people who support evolution. What would motivate an otherwise intelligent person to support the illogical idea that this extremely complex, orderly universe made itself out of nothing for no apparent reason? Here are some motives I have seen:
Some believe or support this "fairy tale for adults" because they have been taught it all their lives. These people have never seriously studied all sides of the controversy. They have been successfully brainwashed by the intense evolutionary propaganda of the last 100 years.
As Hitler said, "If you tell a lie long enough, and loud enough, and often enough the people will believe it."
Sadly, some people support evolutionism for social-political reasons. These people (like Karl Marx, Stalin, Hitler and a host of others) understand that the teaching of evolutionism is foundational to their socialist cause. They know that it plays a vital role in the great struggle for the elite to enslave the masses under a new world order. ...
I would like to see any one bit of scientific proof that supports macro-evolution and disproves the idea that God created a complete, perfect and mature world in the recent past.
We have seen the hoaxes and frauds of evolution come and go. Nebraska man was going to be used as proof of evolution in the 1925 trial in Dayton, Tenn. Later it was discovered that the entire "man" had been scientifically built from one pig's tooth. Piltdown man was an ape's jaw filed down to fit a human skull as a deliberate fraud. Neanderthal man was just an old man with arthritis. Cro-Magnon man is 100 percent human. We could also point out the "discarded" theories of Lamarck, Voltaire, Darwin, Haeckel and others.
The Bible still stands firm: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." That is real science.
Mark Juhl
Bendena
Managing Editor